LOUISVILLE, Ky. — After almost a week now of practicing routes, Jefferson County Public Schools bus drivers are still concerned about transportation.
This comes after the first school board meeting since the meltdown Tuesday night. It was a packed house, with every seat in the auditorium full.
A school bus driver standing outside the meeting told WHAS11 News even if her route goes perfectly, she still won't be home until 8 p.m. -- which is not what she signed up for.
Several drivers at a local bus compound echoed those same concerns in an anonymous interview with WHAS11 News on Wednesday, feeling they had no choice but to plead with the media to get their frustrations out there.
"You got some having nervous breakdowns, I broke down three times practicing my route," one driver said about the first day of school and the lead-up to it.
"Throwing up, shaking, blood pressure's higher," another driver described, who said he has quit and his last day is Thursday. "It's stressful."
During the five days of cancelled school so far, JCPS has been evaluating all routes and stops for efficiency. The district couldn't give exact figures on how many changes it's made, but the roughly 12 drivers WHAS11 News spoke with Wednesday said it's only been adding stops.
"Now, they're adding more stops to us. That stretches it out further," one driver said. "Friday may be a little bit better because we're not gonna have our high school kids. Monday...it's gonna be a repeat of Wednesday."
Superintendent Marty Pollio said they are trying to make short-term changes like "shoulder buddies" to help the drivers with GPS, and also adding vans who can take students who are late on transfers.
"Redoing all the routes in a 4-5 day period is not an option," Pollio said Monday.
He said they are looking into the complaint that bus compounds are not servicing enough schools near them, but they will have to wait until fall break to fully address that.
"We are going to try and minimize that when we do our long-term planning like I said over fall break, but that is not an overnight fix," Pollio said Monday.
He said the priority right now is getting kids back in the classroom.
These drivers say it would be great to have GPS on the buses, but the burnout will continue.
"I knew a lot of the stops would be unsafe. There's a lot of kids crossing four-lane streets, and that's not safe," said the driver who recently quit. "They even had us crossing five lane roads going straight across, and there's no way to safely cross that in the school bus."
JCPS spokesperson Mark Hebert sent WHAS11 News a statement Wednesday, reiterating much of what Pollio said Monday saying:
"Dr. Pollio made it clear to the bus drivers he met with and to the public that there are long and short term solutions. The short term fixes we are implementing are the most important right now because our goal is to get students back to school. We know that many buses will be running late again Friday, Monday and next week as students, drivers and families adjust to the new routes. We will work on long-term, more permanent solutions to the drivers’ concerns once we get students back in school."
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